Archaeologists have pored over countless texts of the ancient civilizations, attempting to piece together bygone worlds. However, relatively little work has been done to reconstruct the musical history of these societies, and even less on why their musical histories are important. This paper aims at a synthesis between the ancient Egyptian and classical Greek archaeological records to analyze the importance of music in Paleolithic human cognitive development. Countless musical instruments have been discovered globally, ranging from pre-Columbian bone flutes in Oaxaca, Mexico to ancient trumpets in Egyptian burials (Barber et al 2009). Apart from their place in a museum, minimal work has been done to ascertain their importance to human society as a whole. This thesis attempts to display the crucial need for more research in this field. The recent decline in support for arts education in favor of 'hard sciences' and mathematics is deeply disturbing; the history of humanity should be important not only to anthropologists and historians, but to members of all disciplines. This lack of interest in 'soft sciences' and the arts may lead to a complete loss of ancient musical history; a loss that would be devastating to history, anthropology and the worlds. The contents of this paper portray both the ancient importance of music, and how it contributed to increased cognitive faculties during hominid development.

The Paleolithic, or ancestral, diet was first proposed by Eaton and Konner in 1985, and it is based on the theory that humans have not diverged greatly from the physiology of the Paleolithic human. Eaton and Konner suggested a diet consisting of meats, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds while omitting food such as dairy, grains, legumes, refined sugar and processed foods. The latter of which are incongruous with the diet we evolved with and are likely the cause of the so-called "diseases of civilization" such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, obesity, osteoporosis and cancer (Konner & Eaton, 2010). This review will first elaborate on the Paleolithic lifestyle and the evidence presented on it before examining the evidence for and against other diet categories not included in the diet such as whole grains, red meat, grass-fed meat, dairy milk and soymilk. The aim of this study is to first evaluate the Paleolithic diet, based on nutrition and ability to address common public health diseases and then to appraise the value of other food categories not included in the lifestyle on the same factors, in order to determine their place in an ideal diet. This study concludes that the Paleolithic diet can lower total body weight, body mass index, cardiovascular risks, triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein among others while increasing insulin sensitivity and ω-3, iron, fiber, vitamins and minerals, including improving the ω-6 to ω-3 ratio and the potassium to sodium ratio when compared to the typical Western diet. The results were consistent even when compared to other diets such as the Mediterranean or the diabetes diet. Studies showing the effectiveness of consuming other foods, such as whole grains, dairy or soymilk, with the intent on losing weight or preventing diabetes, on the other hand, have been inconclusive. Research on soy's estrogenic isoflavone action has been inconclusive. Concerns over the consumption of red meat due to cholesterol and cancer are mitigated and review of the grass-fed literature reveals a potentially richer fatty acid profile with more healthy polyunsaturated fats and less cholesterol-raising saturated fatty acids. It is concluded that an ancestral diet of whole foods, made up of mostly fruits and vegetables, meats, especially grass-fed, nuts and seeds is strongly associated with significantly better outcomes for diseases such as type 2 diabetes and obesity as compared to a typical Western diet, Mediterranean diet or diabetes diet.

The economic life of Europe's Middle Paleolithic inhabitants is poorly known; at only a few sites have the relationships between subsistence behavior and other variables been studied in any detail. The deeply stratified site of Combe Grenal, Dordogne, France, provided an opportunity to study one part of this problem in one of the archaeologically best-known areas of Western Europe. Three aspects of animal exploitation (species preference, carcass use, and butchering techniques) were examined in relationship to each other and to three other variables (climate, associated lithic assemblages, and time). The results of this study, supported by data from Middle Paleolithic sites in the rest of Europe, provide an overall picture of the nature of Mousterian subsistence systems. Middle Paleolithic economies were based on a purposeful, eclectic, and internally diversified set of activities. These show a remarkable persistence through time and a remarkable independence from changes in both climate and lithic industry, while showing little evidence of evolutionary development. The striking conservatism in behavior has implications both for our evaluations of the efficiency of Mousterian technologies and for our concepts of the nature of Middle Paleolithic culture.

This study presents an analysis of the zooarchaeological remains from Klissoura Cave 1, a Middle Paleolithic through Mesolithic site in Peloponnese, Greece. Changes in subsistence patterns are evaluated across a long sequence (ca. 80,000-10,000 BP) against a backdrop of environmental change. Results are interpreted using models from evolutionary ecology, specifically prey choice, central place foraging, and patch choice models. Two major trends are apparent in the series. One is a decline in the exploitation of high-ranked ungulate species with an overall increase in lower-ranked small game animals. The second is an increase in low-ranked small, fast-fast moving animals (e.g., hares and partridges) at the expense of higher-ranked small, slow-moving animals (e.g., tortoises). These changes cannot be accounted for by environmental shifts alone, though shifts in ungulate diversity likely track the expansion and contraction of plant communities. The increase in use of low-ranked prey indicates human population growth and demographic pressure in southern Greece during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. In addition to these overarching trends, there are changes in site use during the sequence. In the Middle Paleolithic, foragers used Klissoura Cave 1 more during the winter and overwhelmingly hunted prime-aged adult animals, maternal herds of fallow deer in particular. In the Upper Paleolithic and later periods, the site continued to be used during the winter, in addition to other times of year, but the mortality profiles reflect a natural fallow deer herd structure. There was an intense period of occupation during the Aurignacian period. This is evidenced by numerous clay-lined hearth features, a possible rock-lined structure, and increases in ornaments, as well as abundant lithic and faunal materials. The ungulate faunas are particularly rich during this period, but there is evidence of resource intensification based on increased bone marrow processing and the transport of marrow-rich elements to the site. After this period there was a gradual decline in site use through the end of the Upper Paleolithic and into the Mesolithic, though the exploitation of low-ranked resources (e.g., small, fast-moving game) indicates that populations were on the rise in there region as a whole.

The Upper Paleolithic site of Vale Boi in coastal, southwestern Portugal currently represents the earliest known case of grease-rendering in Eurasia, with initial occupation occurring during the early Gravettian at ~ 27,000 BP. Long-term exploitation of marine resources is indicated by marine shellfish remains, mainly in the form of limpets (<italic>Patella</italic>), recovered from all three cultural periods (Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian). High-level exploitation of rabbits (<italic>Oryctolagus</italic>) began with initial use of the site and continued throughout the occupations, with a possible increase in intensity at the onset of the Solutrean. Grease-rendering of red deer (<italic>Cervus elaphus</italic>), horse (<italic>Equus caballus</italic>), European ass (<italic>Equus hydruntinus</italic>) and aurochs (<italic>Bos primigenius</italic>) bones was identified through multi-dimensional taphonomic and zooarchaeological analyses. Ungulate remains demonstrated extensive fragmentation and abundant evidence of impact features such as cone fractures, crushing, denting and cracking. The intensity of fragmentation and impact damage to red deer remains is significantly correlated with quantities of marrow and bone grease within these portions. Lack of density-mediated attrition of either the leporid remains or the cranial bone of red deer and horse, demonstrates that the loss of low-density, grease-rich post-cranial skeletal portions is due to human subsistence activities. Balanced body-part representation of ungulates indicates that density-mediated attrition of post-cranial elements is not related to differential transport of carcass portions. Comparison of element portion frequencies to food utility indices further demonstrates that humans were systematically harvesting marrow and bone grease throughout the Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian culture periods. The co-occurrence of fire-cracked rock, stone anvils and hammerstones corroborates this suggestion. Although grease rendering at Vale Boi pre-dates other known sites in Eurasia by several thousand years, faunal assemblages in southeastern Spain indicate that resource diversification and intensification appeared there coevally with Vale Boi. The persistence and continued intensification of subsistence practices throughout the Upper Paleolithic suggests a sustained depression of large game in relation to human populations. This was likely due to patchy, spatially-restricted resources, resulting in territorial circumscription. Only through technological innovation and novel approaches to resource harvesting, were foragers able to maintain and ultimately expand their populations in southern Iberia.

The use of three dimensional modelling techniques with reference to the study of archaeological material is one that is gaining popularity in hominid studies and is already being extensively used globally. This research delves deep into the Acheulean period and takes a refreshed look at the symmetry of handaxes from two sites, namely Rietputs 15 (1.4 ma) which is an early Acheulean site, and the Cave of Hearths, which is estimated to ca 450/500 000 years old and forms the later Acheulean aspect of this sample. This research focuses on creating effective methods for studying symmetry in relation to various variables specific to each site, and it aims to gather data using 3D methods that more traditional 2D techniques struggle to capture. Ultimately this data provided me with a quantified measure of symmetry for handaxes from the two sites. For the Cave of Hearths, statistical evaluation of the measures of left versus right volumes showed strong, statistically significant correlations (r = 0.870, p < 0.05), as did measures of left versus right surface areas (r = 0.960, p < 0.05). Rietputs provided comparable results of: r = 0.859, p <0.05 for volume, and r = 0.954, p <0.05 for area, thus suggesting that good symmetry exists. By using sectoral analysis, this study shows that the tip is the most variable sector of the tools for both sites. This result supports the assumption that handaxes were designed for varied functions (e.g., cutting, skinning, digging roots, or working wood) but ones which required a strong distal end. The medial and proximal sectors are both relatively less variable, and their properties may have been more constrained by the convergent shape of the tool. Values for the later Acheulean sample show only slightly less variability than for the early Acheulean, but this is nevertheless an interesting trend which relates to hominid and cultural evolution over ca 1 million years of time.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 162-179). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Accompanying CD-ROM contains data recorded during examinations of six lithic assemblages and Pendulum Indenter tests, plus macros for use with data. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 553-598).

In the last ten years it has become apparent that the radiocarbon dating method can significantly underestimate the age of samples > 25 ka BP because routine pre-treatment protocols may not remove sufficient contaminants. In response, new pre-treatment protocols have been proposed, and two in particular, ultrafiltration of bone collagen and ABOx-SC of charcoal, show promise. This thesis has tested whether these methods effectively remove contaminants without adding carbon in the laboratory. Subsequently it used them, alongside careful selection of humanly modified material and Bayesian statistical analysis, to test the radiocarbon-based chronology of the Iberian Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. Both protocols were found to effectively remove environmental contaminants, but add small amounts of laboratory-derived carbon. Using known age standards, a correction has been calculated for the ultrafiltration protocol to counter the effect of the laboratory-derived carbon. A similar correction could not be made for the ABOx-SC protocol due to uncertainties in the age of the standards and underlying chemical processes. However, the effect of such contamination did not have a significant effect on the chronologies developed for the sites examined in this thesis. 96 new radiocarbon dates have been obtained from the Iberian Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. A further 50 dates recovered from the literature and are regarded as reliable. The most alarming finding of this thesis is that routine pre-treatment protocols may cause dates to be underestimated by more than 10 ka ¹⁴C years. The implication of offsets of this magnitude in Iberia is significant: whereas a prolonged survival of Neanderthals south of the Ebro valley has been observed in the published dataset, this study could not replicate such ages. Preservation did not allow the arrival of anatomically modern humans to be dated in the south. However, using typological arguments and the chronology constructed for the north of the Peninsula, it is unlikely that they were present in this region before 38,080 – 36,680 cal BP (95% probability). This implies a temporal gap of at least 4,490 – 12,740 cal years, although it is unclear whether this is due to taphonomic factors or is a real period of abandonment. This pattern contrasts to northern areas of the Peninsula where the Aurignacian appears at 42,330 – 40,980 cal BP, shortly postdating the start of the Châtelperronian and end of the Mousterian. It is hoped that the chronology produced will warn against the use of radiocarbon dates produced using poor pre-treatment protocols and has laid the foundations from which a more accurate and more precise chronology can be built in the future.

The present study examines the earliest known musical instruments, Upper Paleolithic flutes. Flutes dating to the Upper Paleolithic period are the oldest musical instruments that have survived in the archeological record. These have been discovered at archeological sites in Europe dating from approximately 40,000 to 15,000 years ago. Although humans were most likely creating music prior to this time, the people who entered Europe approximately 40,000 years ago began to create musical instruments that have survived to the present day. This study investigates the significance and function of these instruments in Upper Paleolithic culture. Analysis of the artifacts is followed by discussions of archeological contexts, Upper Paleolithic art, ethnographic comparison, and the flute in mythology. Such diverse sources provide multiple layers of evidence regarding the role of the flute in Upper Paleolithic culture. The phallic shape of the instrument and the fact that it is played with the breath, also a symbol of life, connect the flute with the fertility of humans, plants, and animals, the cycle of life and death, and rebirth after death. There is evidence that the flute was intrinsically linked to these themes even in the Upper Paleolithic period, in which the flute was of vital significance, as it was magically imbued with the power to bestow life. / text